Ukraine

Colombian fighters Alexander Ante, 48, and Jose Aron Medina Aranda, 37 were each sentenced to 13 years in prison for serving with Ukrainian forces.

A court run by Moscow-installed authorities in Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region has sentenced two Colombian nationals to 13 years in prison each for fighting on behalf of Kyiv.

The ruling, announced on Thursday, is the latest in a series of lengthy sentences handed to foreign fighters accused by Moscow-backed prosecutors of being “mercenaries”.

“For participating in hostilities on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” – Alexander Ante, 48, and Jose Aron Medina Aranda, 37 – “were each sentenced to 13 years in prison”, the prosecutor’s office said on the Telegram messaging app.

According to reports, the pair fought for Ukraine in 2023 and 2024 before disappearing in July while transiting through Venezuela, a close ally of Russia, on their way home to Colombia after serving in the war.

Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reported in July 2024 that the men were detained in the Venezuelan capital Caracas while still wearing Ukrainian military uniforms.

A month later, Russian authorities said they had taken custody of the two, who both hail from the western Colombian city of Popayan.

Footage released by Russia’s FSB security service showed the men handcuffed and dressed in prison uniforms as masked officers escorted them through a court building.

News of the pair’s sentencing on Thursday was widely covered in Colombian media.

“I don’t know if we will see them again one day. That’s the sad reality,” said Medina’s wife, Cielo Paz, in an interview with the AFP news agency, adding that she had not heard from her husband since his arrest.

#Colombia 🇨🇴🇷🇺 Alexander Ante y José Medina fueron condenados por participar como “mercenarios” en las hostilidades del lado de las Fuerzas Armadas de Ucrania.

👉Lee la nota completa en: https://t.co/UrlDjv6Tnp pic.twitter.com/1kiEl1rlU2

— RTVC Noticias (@RTVCnoticias) November 6, 2025

Translation: Alexander Ante and Jose Medina were convicted for participating as “mercenaries” in the hostilities on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In June, Russian state news agency TASS reported that Pablo Puentes Borges, another Colombian national, was handed a 28-year prison term by a Russian military court on charges of terrorism and mercenary activity for fighting alongside Ukrainian forces.

Earlier, in April, Miguel Angel Cardenas Montilla, also from Colombia, received a nine-year sentence for fighting with Ukrainian forces.

While Russian investigators have labelled foreigners who fight alongside Ukrainian forces as “mercenaries”, the Kyiv Post notes that most foreign fighters serving in Ukraine’s armed forces are formally enlisted and receive the same pay and status as Ukrainian soldiers.

That formalisation of their status in the Ukrainian army means they do not meet the legal definition of a mercenary under international law, the media outlet reported.

But Moscow continues to prosecute captured foreign fighters as “mercenaries” – a charge that carries up to 15 years in prison – rather than recognising them as prisoners of war who are protected under the Geneva Conventions.

Colombia’s government says dozens of its citizens have been killed fighting in Ukraine since the war began in February 2022.

Russian forces have spread rapidly through Pokrovsk, the city in Ukraine’s east where the warring sides have concentrated their manpower and tactical ingenuity during the past week, in what may be a final culmination of a 21-month battle.

Geolocated footage placed Russian troops in central, northern and northeastern Pokrovsk, said the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank.

Russia sees control of Pokrovsk and neighbouring Myrnohrad as essential to capturing the remaining unoccupied parts of the Donetsk region.

It set its sights on the city almost two years ago, after capturing Avdiivka, 39km (24 miles) to the east.

Ukraine sees the defence of the city as a means of eroding Russian manpower and buying time for the “fortress belt” of Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, and Sloviansk, the largest remaining and most heavily defended cities of Donetsk.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded their surrender as part of a land swap and ceasefire he discussed with United States President Donald Trump last August. Ukraine has refused.

A recent US intelligence assessment said Putin was more determined than ever to prevail on the battlefield in Ukraine, NBC reported.

Russia seems to have outmanoeuvred Ukraine by striking its drone operators before they had time to deploy, and cutting off resupply routes at critical points.

“Operational and tactical aircraft, backed by drones, significantly disrupted the Ukrainian army’s logistics in Pokrovsk,” said Russia’s Ministry of Defence on Friday. It said it had destroyed two out of three bridges across the Vovcha River, used by Ukrainian logistics to reach the city.

“Unfortunately, everything is sad in the Pokrovsk direction,” wrote a Ukrainian drone unit calling itself Peaky Blinders on the messaging app Telegram. “The intensity of movements is so great that drone operators simply do not have time to lift the [drone] overboard.”

On October 29, Ukrainian commanders reported only 200 Russian soldiers in Pokrovsk.

Peaky Blinders said Russia was sending as many as 300 into the city a day, “in groups of three people with the expectation that two will be destroyed”.

By neutralising Ukraine’s drone operators and using fibre optic drones immune to jamming, Russia reportedly acquired a numerical drone advantage in the city’s vicinity.

Ukrainian commanders said Russia also took advantage of wet weather, which disadvantaged the use of light, first-person-view drones.

Ukrainian military observer Konstantyn Mashovets said the Russian command had developed these new infiltration tactics to exploit Ukrainian vulnerabilities – a lack of manpower and gaps among their units.

“The Russian command ‘tried different options’ for some time,” said Mashovets.

“Russian technical innovations, such as first-person-view drones with increased ranges, thermobaric warheads, and ‘sleeper’ or ‘waiter’ drones along [ground lines of communication], allowed Russian forces to … restrict Ukrainian troop movements, evacuations, and logistics,” the ISW said.

As recently as Saturday, Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii framed the battle as one of counterattack rather than defence.

“A comprehensive operation to destroy and push out enemy forces from Pokrovsk is ongoing,” he wrote on his Telegram channel. “There is no encirclement or blockade of the cities.”

Yet there was clearly alarm. Ukraine sent its intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, to the Pokrovsk area with military intelligence (GUR) forces to keep supply lines open.

Two Ukrainian military sources told the Reuters news agency that the GUR had successfully landed at least 10 operators in a Blackhawk helicopter near Pokrovsk on Friday.

On Saturday, Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed “an operation to deploy a GUR special operations group by a helicopter in 1km (0.6 miles) northwest of [Pokrovsk] was thwarted. All 11 militants who disembarked from the helicopter have been neutralised.”

It was unclear whether the two reports referred to the same group.

Deep air strikes

Russia kept up a separate campaign to destroy Ukraine’s electricity and gas infrastructure, launching 1,448 drones and 74 missiles into the rear of the country from October 30 to November 5.

Ukraine said it intercepted 86 percent of the drones but just less than half the missiles, such that 208 drones and 41 missiles found their targets.

With US help, Ukraine has responded with strikes on Russian refineries and oil export terminals.

Ukraine appeared on Sunday to strike both a Russian oil terminal and, for the first time, two foreign civilian tankers taking on oil there.

Video appeared to show the tankers at Tuapse terminal on the Black Sea on fire, and the governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region confirmed the hit.

“As a result of the drone attack on the port of Tuapse on the night of November 2, two foreign civilian ships were damaged,” he said.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said it intercepted another 238 Ukrainian long-range drones overnight.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence said it struck the Lukoil refinery in Kstovo in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region, east of Moscow.

Russian regional authorities also said Ukraine attempted to damage a petrochemical plant in Bashkortostan, 1,500km (930 miles) east of Ukraine.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said it shot down 204 Ukrainian long-range drones overnight.

According to the head of Ukraine’s State Security Service, SBU, Kyiv’s forces have struck 160 oil and energy facilities in Russia this year.

Vasyl Maliuk said a special SBU operation had destroyed a hypersonic ballistic Oreshnik missile on Russian soil.

“One of the three Oreshniks was successfully destroyed on their (Russian) territory at Kapustin Yar,” Maliuk briefed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday.

Russia unveiled the Oreshnik with a strike on the city of Dnipro a year ago. It says it will deploy the missile in Belarus by December.

Ukraine has been lobbying the US government for Tomahawk cruise missiles, which have a range of 2,500km (1,550 miles). So far, Trump has refused, on the basis that “we need them too.”

The Pentagon cleared Ukraine to receive Tomahawk missiles, after determining this would not deprive the US military of the stockpile it needs, CNN reported last week, quoting unnamed US and European officials.

The political decision now rests with Trump on whether to send those missiles or not. The report did not specify how many Ukraine could have.

US Treasury accuses Pyongyang of stealing $3bn in digital assets to finance its nuclear weapons programme over three years.

North Korea has denounced the latest United States sanctions targeting cybercrimes that the US says help finance its nuclear weapons programme, accusing Washington of harbouring “wicked” hostility towards Pyongyang and promising unspecified countermeasures.

The statement on Thursday by a North Korean vice foreign minister came two days after the US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on eight people and two firms, including North Korean bankers, for allegedly laundering money from cybercrime schemes.

The US Treasury accused North Korea of operating state-sponsored hacking schemes that have stolen more than $3bn in mostly digital assets over the past three years, an amount unmatched by any other foreign actor. The Treasury Department said the illicit funds helped finance the country’s nuclear weapons programme.

The department said North Korea relies on a network of banking representatives, financial institutions and shell companies in North Korea, China, Russia and elsewhere to launder funds obtained through IT worker fraud, cryptocurrency heists and sanctions evasion.

The sanctions were rolled out even as US President Donald Trump continues to express interest in reviving talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Their nuclear discussions during Trump’s first term collapsed in 2019 amid disagreements over trading relief from US-led sanctions on North Korea for steps to dismantle its nuclear programme.

“Now that the present US administration has clarified its stand to be hostile towards the DPRK to the last, we will also take proper measures to counter it with patience for any length of time,” the North Korean vice minister, Kim Un Chol, said in a statement.

He said US sanctions and pressure tactics will never change the “present strategic situation” between the countries or alter North Korea’s “thinking and viewpoint”.

Kim Jong Un has shunned any form of talks with Washington and Seoul since his fallout with Trump in 2019. He has since made Russia the focus of his foreign policy, sending thousands of soldiers, many of whom have died on the battlefield, and large amounts of military equipment for President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine while pursuing an increasingly assertive strategy aimed at securing a larger role for North Korea in a united front against the US-led West.

In a recent speech, Kim Jong Un urged Washington to drop its demand for the North to surrender its nuclear weapons as a condition for resuming diplomacy. He ignored Trump’s proposal to meet while the US president was in South Korea last week for meetings with world leaders attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has told top Kremlin officials to draft proposals for the possible resumption of nuclear weapons testing, as Moscow responds to President Donald Trump’s order that the United States “immediately” resume its own testing after a decades-long hiatus.

The Russian leader told his Security Council on Wednesday that should the US or any signatory to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) conduct nuclear weapons tests, “Russia would be under obligation to take reciprocal measures”, according to a transcript of the meeting published by the Kremlin.

“In this regard, I instruct the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry, the special services, and the corresponding civilian agencies to do everything possible to gather additional information on this matter, have it analysed by the Security Council, and submit coordinated proposals on the possible first steps focusing on preparations for nuclear weapons tests,” Putin said.

Moscow has not carried out nuclear weapons tests since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But tensions between the two countries with the world’s largest nuclear arsenals have spiked in recent weeks as Trump’s frustration with Putin grows over Russia’s failure to end its war in Ukraine.

The US leader cancelled a planned summit with Putin in Hungary in October, before imposing sanctions on two major Russian oil firms a day later – the first such measures since Trump returned to the White House in January.

Trump then said on October 30 that he had ordered the Department of Defense to “immediately” resume nuclear weapons testing on an “equal basis” with other nuclear-armed powers.

Trump’s decision came days after he criticised Moscow for testing its new Burevestnik missile, which is nuclear-powered and designed to carry a nuclear warhead.

According to the Kremlin transcript, Putin spoke with several senior officials in what appeared to be a semi-choreographed advisory session.

Defence Minister Andrei Belousov told Putin that Washington’s recent actions significantly raise “the level of military threat to Russia”, as he said that it was “imperative to maintain our nuclear forces at a level of readiness sufficient to inflict unacceptable damage”.

Belousov added that Russia’s Arctic testing site at Novaya Zemlya could host nuclear tests at short notice.

Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, also cautioned that if Russia does not “take appropriate measures now, time and opportunities for a timely response to the actions of the United States will be lost”.

Following the meeting, state news agency TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Putin had set no specific deadline for officials to draft the requested proposals.

“In order to come to a conclusion about the advisability of beginning preparations for such tests, it will take exactly as much time as it takes for us to fully understand the intentions of the United States of America,” Peskov said.

Russia and the US are by far the biggest nuclear powers globally in terms of the number of warheads they possess.

The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation (CACNP) estimates that Moscow currently has 5,459 nuclear warheads, of which 1,600 are actively deployed.

The US has about 5,550 nuclear warheads, according to the CACNP, with about 3,800 of those active. At its peak in the mid-1960s during the Cold War, the US stockpile consisted of more than 31,000 active and inactive nuclear warheads.

China currently lags far behind, but has rapidly expanded its nuclear warhead stockpile to about 600 in recent years, adding about 100 per year since 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

France, Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea comprise the remaining nuclear-armed countries.

The US last exploded a nuclear device in 1992, after former Republican President George HW Bush issued a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing following the collapse of the Soviet Union a year earlier.

Since 1996, the year the CTBT was opened for signatures, only three countries have detonated nuclear devices.

India and Pakistan conducted tests in 1998. North Korea has carried out five explosive tests since 2006 – most recently in 2017 – making it the only country to do so in the 21st century.

Such blasts, regularly staged by nuclear powers during the Cold War, have devastating environmental consequences.

Trump has yet to clarify whether the resumption he ordered last week refers to nuclear-explosive testing or to flight testing of nuclear-capable missiles, which would see the National Nuclear Safety Administration test delivery systems without requiring explosions.

Security analysts say a resumption of nuclear-explosive testing by any of the world’s nuclear powers would be destabilising, as it would likely trigger a similar response by the others.

Andrey Baklitskiy, senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, said that the Kremlin’s response was a prime example of the “action-reaction cycle”, in which a new nuclear arms race could be triggered.

“No one needs this, but we might get there regardless,” he posted on X.

Russian MOD Belousov suggests Russia should start to prepare for a full-scale nuclear test in response to the US statements. Action-reaction cycle at its best. No one needs this, but we might get there regardless

— Andrey Baklitskiy (@baklitskiy) November 5, 2025

Here are the key events from day 1,351 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Thursday, November 6:

Fighting

• The Russian Ministry of Defence said encircled Ukrainian troops in the cities of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk should surrender as they have no chance to save themselves otherwise.
• Russia said its forces were advancing north inside Pokrovsk in a drive to take full control of the Ukrainian city, but the Ukrainian army said its units were battling hard to try to stop the Russians from gaining new ground.
• Ukraine has acknowledged its troops face a difficult situation in the strategic eastern city, once an important transport and logistics hub for the Ukrainian army, which Russia has been trying to capture for more than a year.
• Russia sees Pokrovsk city as the gateway to its capture of the remaining 10 percent, or 5,000 square-kilometres(1,930 square miles), of Ukraine’s eastern industrial Donbas region, one of its key aims in the almost four-year-old war.
• A Ukrainian drone attack caused minor damage to oil pumping stations in two districts of Russia’s Yaroslavl region, Mikhail Yevrayev, the regional governor, said.

Energy

• Ukraine has resumed gas imports from a pipeline that runs across the Balkan peninsula to Greece, to keep its heating and electric systems running through the winter after widespread damage from intensified Russian attacks on Kyiv’s energy infrastructure.
• Data from the Ukrainian gas transit operator showed that Ukraine will receive 1.1 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas from the Transbalkan route on Wednesday, after the import of 0.78 mcm on Tuesday. The route links Ukraine to LNG terminals in Greece, via Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria.
• Poland is working on a deal to import liquefied natural gas from the United States to supply Ukraine and Slovakia, an agreement that would further tighten the European Union’s ties to US energy, the Reuters news agency reports, citing two sources familiar with the negotiations.

Nuclear weapons

• Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his top officials to draft proposals for a possible test of nuclear weapons, something Moscow has not done since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
• Putin’s order – made in response to US President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that Washington would resume nuclear testing – is being seen as a signal that the two countries are rapidly nearing a step that could sharply escalate geopolitical tensions.
• The US notified Russia in advance of its test launch of an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on November 5, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported, citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
• Russia-US relations have deteriorated sharply in the past few weeks as Trump, frustrated with a lack of progress towards ending the war in Ukraine, has cancelled a planned summit with Putin and imposed sanctions on Russia for the first time since returning to the White House in January.
• Trump said he “may be working on a plan to denuclearise” with China and Russia, during a speech at the American Business Forum in Miami.

Sanctions

• Bulgaria is drafting legal changes that will allow it to seize control of sanctioned Russian oil firm Lukoil’s Burgas refinery and sell it to a new owner to protect the plant from US sanctions, local media reported.
• Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna called on China to stop its economic support of Russia’s war in Ukraine and urged Beijing to join European and US efforts to pressure President Putin into a ceasefire.
• “China says that they are not part of this military conflict, but I was very clear that China has huge leverage over Russia, every week more and more, because the Russian economy is weak,” Tsahkna told Reuters.

Economy

• Ukraine plans to replace its kopek coins to shake off a lingering symbol of Moscow’s former dominance, Central Bank Governor Andriy Pyshnyi said, adding that he hoped the change could be completed this year.
• Ukraine introduced its hryvnia currency in 1996, five years after it gained independence from the Soviet Union, minting its own coins but retaining the former Soviet name kopek – kopiyka in Ukrainian. The new coins will be known by the historical Ukrainian term “shah”.

Russia’s key Black Sea oil port of Tuapse has suspended all fuel exports after Ukrainian drones struck its infrastructure on November 2, igniting a fire and damaging loading facilities. The attack also forced the nearby Rosneft-operated refinery to halt crude processing, according to industry sources and LSEG ship tracking data.

Tuapse is one of Russia’s major export hubs for refined oil products, including naphtha, diesel, and fuel oil. The port plays a crucial role in supplying markets such as China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Turkey. The refinery, capable of processing around 240,000 barrels of oil per day, exports most of its production.

Why It Matters

The suspension underscores Ukraine’s ongoing campaign to weaken Russia’s wartime economy by targeting energy infrastructure deep inside Russian territory. These strikes not only disrupt export revenues but also stretch Russia’s military and logistical resources. For Moscow, losing Tuapse an export-oriented refinery on the Black Sea adds pressure to its already strained oil supply chain amid international sanctions and logistical bottlenecks.

The attack also signals Kyiv’s growing drone capabilities, with long-range operations increasingly aimed at strategic Russian energy sites. As the conflict nears its fourth year, energy infrastructure on both sides has become a critical front in the economic war underpinning the battlefield.

The regional administration in Tuapse confirmed the drone strike and subsequent fire but offered few details. State oil company Rosneft and Russia’s port agency did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

According to data reviewed by LSEG, three tankers were docked during the attack, loading naphtha, diesel, and fuel oil. All vessels were later moved offshore to anchor safely near the port. Before the incident, Tuapse had been expected to increase oil product exports in November.

Ukraine has not directly claimed responsibility for the specific attack but reiterated that its drone strikes aim to erode Russia’s capacity to finance its invasion through energy exports.

What’s Next

Repair timelines for the Tuapse refinery and port infrastructure remain unclear, but the temporary halt is expected to disrupt Russia’s short-term fuel exports and trading flows in the Black Sea region. The strike may prompt Moscow to bolster air defenses along its southern coast and diversify export routes to reduce vulnerability.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is expected to continue leveraging drone warfare to target high-value Russian infrastructure as part of its asymmetric strategy to offset Moscow’s battlefield advantages.

With information from an exclusive Reuters report.

Kyiv, Ukraine – The collective West is scared of Moscow’s new, nuclear-powered cruise missile because it can reach anywhere on Earth, bypassing the most sophisticated air and missile defence systems, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has claimed.

“They’re afraid of what we’ll show to them next,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the RIA Novosti news agency on Sunday.

Days earlier, she said Moscow was “forced” to develop and test the cruise missile, which is named the Burevestnik, meaning storm petrel – a type of seabird, in response to NATO’s hostility towards Russia.

“The development can be characterised as forced and takes place to maintain strategic balance,” she was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying. Russia “has to respond to NATO’s increasingly destabilising actions in the field of missile defence”.

With much pomp, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday handed state awards to Burevestnik’s developers.

Also awarded were the designers of Poseidon, an underwater nuclear-powered torpedo which Putin has also claimed has been successfully tested.

Russia says Poseidon can carry nuclear weapons that cause radioactive tsunamis, wiping out huge coastal areas. The “super torpedo” can move at the speed of 200km/h (120mph) and zigzag its way to avoid interception, it says.

“In terms of flight range, the Burevestnik … has surpassed all known missile systems in the world,” Putin said in his speech at the Kremlin. “Same as any other nuclear power, Russia is developing its nuclear potential, its strategic potential … What we are talking about now is the work announced a long time ago.”

But military and nuclear experts are sceptical about the efficiency and lethality of the new weapons.

It is not unusual for Russia to flaunt its arsenal as its onslaught in Ukraine continues. Analysts say rather than scaring its critics, Moscow’s announcements are merely a scare tactic to dissuade Western powers from supporting Kyiv.

“There’s nothing revolutionary about,” the Burevestnik, said Pavel Podvig, director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project at the the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.

“It can fly long and far, and there’s some novelty about it, but there’s nothing to back [Putin’s claim] that it can absolutely change everything,” Podvig told Al Jazeera. “One can’t say that it is invincible and can triumph over everything.”

The Burevestnik’s test is part of Moscow’s media stratagem of intimidating the West when the real situation on the front lines in Ukraine is desperate, according to a former Russian diplomat.

The missile is “not a technical breakthrough but a product of propaganda and desperation”, Boris Bondarev, who quit his Russian Foreign Ministry job to protest against the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, wrote in an opinion piece published by the Moscow Times.

“It symbolises not strength but weakness – the Kremlin’s lack of any tools of political influence other than threats.”

Few details about ‘unique’ missile

The problem is that officials have so far unveiled very little about the Burevestnik, which NATO has dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall – a missile that has a nuclear reactor allegedly capable of keeping it in the air indefinitely.

On October 26, when fatigues-clad Putin announced Burevestnik’s successful test, he was accompanied by his top general Valery Gerasimov.

“This is a unique item; no one else in the world has it,” said Putin, in televised remarks.

Gerasimov said the Burevestnik had flown 14,000km (8,700 miles) in 15 hours during a recent test. It can manoeuvre and loiter midair, and unleash its nuclear load with “guaranteed precision” and at “any distance”.

“There’s a lot of work ahead” before the missile is mass-produced, Putin concluded, adding the test’s “key objectives have been achieved”.

A Ukrainian military expert ridiculed the Kremlin’s claims.

“Much of the news report is fake, the (Burevestnik) missile is subsonic, it can be detected and destroyed by missile defence systems,” Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces who specialised in air and missile defence, told Al Jazeera.

As for the Poseidon nuclear drone, it is too destructive – and can be used only as a second-strike, retaliatory weapon after the start of a nuclear war, experts warned. As with the Burevestnik, the lack of detailed information about Poseidon casts doubt upon the Kremlin’s claims.

Trump decries ‘inappropriate’ tests

The announcements followed Washington’s scrapping of United States President Donald Trump’s summit with Putin in Budapest, Hungary.

Trump has called the Burevestnik’s test “inappropriate” and ordered the Pentagon to resume the testing of nuclear weapons and missiles.

But ahead of next year’s midterm elections, he may seek to show how he forced the Kremlin to stop hostilities in Ukraine.

“Trump will have to play with pressure on Russia,” Romanenko said. “Hopefully, the circumstances will force Trump to act.”

What Putin has not mentioned is that only two of the Burevestnik’s dozen tests, starting in 2019, have been successful.

Its 2019 launch near the White Sea in northwestern Russia killed at least five nuclear experts after a radioactive explosion, Western experts said at the time. Russia’s state nuclear agency acknowledged the deaths, but officials and media reports do not provide video footage, detailed photos or other specifics of the Burevestnik and its testing route – making Putin’s latest claims hard to corroborate or disprove.

Western experts were able to identify the Burevestnik’s probable deployment site in September. Known as Vologda-20 or Chebsara, it is believed to be 475km (295 miles) north of Moscow and has nine launch pads under construction, the Reuters news agency reported last year.

The missile’s capabilities have divided military analysts.

“In operation, the Burevestnik would carry a nuclear warhead (or warheads), circle the globe at low altitude, avoid missile defences, and dodge terrain; and drop the warhead(s) at a difficult-to-predict location (or locations),” the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a US nonprofit security group said in a 2019 report after the missile’s first somewhat successful test.

A year later, the US Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center said, if brought into service, Burevestnik would give Moscow a “unique weapon with intercontinental-range capability”.

‘Burevestnik is a mystification’

Others doubt the missile’s functionality.

“Burevestnik is a mystification for the whole seven-and-a-half years since it was first announced,” Pavel Luzin, a visiting scholar at Tufts University in Massachusetts, told Al Jazeera.

“It’s impossible to create a reactor that is compact and powerful enough to ensure a cruise missile’s movement,” Luzin said. “This is a basic physics textbook.”

Moscow claims that Burevestnik utilises nuclear propulsion instead of turbojet or turbofan engines used in cruise or ballistic missiles.

But Luzin said the smallest nuclear reactors used to power satellites weighed 1 metric tonne, supplying several kilowatts of energy – roughly equal to what a regular household consumes – while emitting some 150kw of thermal energy.

The experimental nuclear reactors developed in the 1950s and the 60s for aircraft weighed many tonnes and were the size of a railway carriage, he said.

An average engine for a cruise missile weighs up to 80kg, generates 4kw for onboard electric and electronic devices, and about 1 megawatt of energy for propelling the missile, he said.

Other analysts think that Burevestnik’s nuclear engine can function, but do not consider the weapon groundbreaking.

Nov. 5 (UPI) — European lawmakers have agreed to a fifth disbursement of $2 billion for Ukraine, supporting its financial stability and government as its defense against a Russian invasion nears its fourth year.

The European Council, the collegiate body of the 27-member bloc, adopted a decision Monday to disburse the funds under its Ukraine Facility, the EU’s main framework for sustaining Ukraine’s economy, governance and reconstruction.

The disbursement comes after Kyiv’s successful completion of nine steps required for the money to be released and one outstanding step from the fourth disbursement of $3.6 billion in August.

“The funding aims primarily to bolster Ukraine’s macro-financial stability and support the continued operation of its public administration,” the council said in a statement.

The Ukraine Facility was adopted in February 2024 and came into force the next month to provide Ukraine with up to $57.4 billion in stable financing in the form of grants and loans through 2027.

Up to $36.7 billion of the funds are earmarked for reforms and investments established in the Ukraine Plan, which will also accelerate Kyiv’s EU accession.

Under the Ukraine Facility, the EU has disbursed about $6.8 billion in bridge financing, $2.1 billion in pre-financing and now five installments of $4.8 billion, $4.1 billion, $4 billion, $3.6 billion and $2 billion on Tuesday.

The disbursement came as the European Commission, the executive branch of the bloc, published a report assessing that Ukraine has made progress in its accession process.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a statement that the report “is the best assessment to date — proof that even as we defend against Russia’s full-scale aggression, Ukraine continues to reform and transform according to European standards.”

“Ukraine’s progress on the path to the EU is achieved by efforts of millions of our people,” he said.

“We are committed to working together to strengthen Europe and our shared values.”

Here are the key events from day 1,350 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, November 5:

Fighting

• Russian and Ukrainian troops have fought battles in the ruins of Pokrovsk, a transport and logistics hub in eastern Ukraine, with Ukraine’s military reporting fierce fighting under way in a part of the city that was key for Kyiv’s front-line logistics.

  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he visited troops fighting near the eastern city of Dobropillia, where Ukrainian forces are conducting a counteroffensive against Russian troops.

  Russia struck civilian energy and port infrastructure in a massive overnight drone attack on Ukraine’s southern region of Odesa, the region’s governor said in a post on the Telegram messaging app, adding that rescuers extinguished fires and there were no casualties.

• Ukraine has struck an oil refinery in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a statement. The extent of damage to the Lukoil refinery in the town of Kstovo, which supplies the Russian military, was not immediately known.

• Ukraine’s military also said that its drones had caused “considerable damage” to a petrochemical plant in Bashkortostan in central Russia. Regional authorities reported an attack on the Sterlitamak petrochemical plant, but added that the facility was still operating.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that allows the use of military reservists to guard oil refineries after Ukrainian drone strikes have led to fuel shortages in some regions of the country.

Weapons

• Putin lauded his country’s development of new weapons, including the Burevestnik cruise missile and Poseidon super torpedo, describing them as faster and more effective, with the Burevestnik said to be capable of reaching more than three times the speed of sound.
• Putin also said that Russia was proceeding with the mass production of its Oreshnik missile, which Moscow said was first used to attack Ukraine in November 2024.

• Zelenskyy again urged the United States to remain open to supplying Kyiv with long-range weapons for its war effort against Russia’s invasion, while also calling for more sanctions on Moscow’s gas and nuclear sectors.

• Norwegian munitions maker Nammo has signed a letter of intent with a Ukrainian industrial partner to produce, develop and sell ammunition in Ukraine, Norway’s government said.

Sanctions

• Kazakhstan’s state-owned oil and gas company Kazmunaygaz and the sanctioned Russian oil and gas firm Lukoil are continuing work on joint projects in accordance with contractual obligations, despite Western sanctions, Russia’s Interfax agency reported.

• Japan’s investment firm Marubeni plans to follow the guidance of the Japanese government regarding its involvement in Russia’s Sakhalin-1 oil project after the US government sanctioned the project’s key shareholder, Rosneft, Marubeni’s CEO, Masayuki Omoto, told a briefing in Tokyo.

• Turkish fuel supplier Guzel Enerji has announced that it will raise the price of diesel after Western sanctions on Russian oil companies led to issues with supply and increased insurance and financing costs, according to a document seen by Reuters news agency.

Politics and diplomacy

• Zelenskyy called on Hungarian leader Viktor Orban to stop blocking Kyiv’s bid to join the European Union.
• The European Commission said that the EU could welcome new member countries as early as 2030, as it praised Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova for their progress on reforms needed to join the bloc.
• The EU may need to come up with a bridging solution to keep Ukraine financed in early 2026 if a deal on an EU loan, based on frozen Russian assets held in EU accounts, continues to be delayed, European Commissioner for Economy and Productivity Valdis Dombrovskis said.

• Germany plans to increase its financial aid to Ukraine by about 3 billion euros ($3.5bn) next year, a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of Finance said. Germany has already contributed about 40 billion euros ($46bn) since the full-scale Russian invasion began in 2022.

• Maxim Oreshkin, a deputy chief of staff in Russia’s presidential administration, will lead Moscow’s delegation to the G20 summit in South Africa later this month, according to a decree signed by Putin. The Kremlin earlier said that Putin, who is facing an International Criminal Court warrant for arrest, would not travel to the summit in Johannesburg on November 22-23.

• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is constantly working as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia over Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, including in Zaporizhzhia, IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi said.

Berlin, Germany – Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has played down Western concerns that Russia is preparing for further conflicts in Europe and suggested the European Union should have a concrete peace plan in place for Ukraine amid efforts by the United States to end the war.

Rama, speaking to Al Jazeera on the sidelines of the Berlin Global Dialogue conference late last month, said it would be “completely stupid” of any country to attack EU or NATO members.

“Russia will not attack Albania and Russia will not attack any other European country,” he said. “NATO is ready for any kind of aggression. NATO has nobody and nothing to fear because it’s the strongest army in the world so far.”

Twenty-three out of 27 EU member states are NATO members. Albania is part of NATO and has been an EU candidate country since 2014.

“The EU is being provoked a lot by Russia,” said Rama. “Countries on the border with Russia are being provoked on a daily basis … the EU is defending itself and thinking of defending itself better.”

Since early September, several European countries, including Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Romania, have blamed Russia for a series of suspected drone incursions. Tensions soared further on September 19, when NATO said it intercepted three Russian MiG-31 jets suspected of entering Estonian airspace, a claim denied by Moscow.

Last month, German foreign intelligence chief Martin Jager warned lawmakers that to grow its “sphere of influence further westward into Europe”, Russia would “shy away from direct military confrontation with NATO if necessary”.

Moscow has dismissed accusations that it has deliberately sent drones into European airspace, blaming those countries for stoking hysteria.

EU’s lack of a peace plan ‘looks very strange’

Rama’s government has been vocal in its criticism of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and supports EU sanctions on Moscow.

But he told Al Jazeera, “The fact that the EU does not have a peace plan looks very strange to me.”

As US President Donald Trump attempts to secure a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, Rama said the EU should “think about having its own diplomacy in action to promote its own vision of peace”.

He also suggested EU officials should “find a way to talk to the Russians” to end the war.

Late on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had not seen a European plan to end the war, according to Interfax news agency.

Rama claimed that Albania, which has not reported any Russian drone sightings, feels little pressure despite the apparent incursions, as Eastern European countries bordering Russia are on high security alert.

“I’m Albanian,” Rama said. “We have no fears … There is no room for Russian hostilities in Albania because there is no sympathy for Russia.”

Before the suspected airspace violations, Moscow had long been accused of engaging in “hybrid warfare”, using unconventional methods such as cyberattacks or disinformation campaigns to drive a wedge between EU countries. The drone incursions, the bloc says, are part of that tactic.

There are fears that Russia’s war could spill over into the Western Balkans, comprising – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, self-declared republic of Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia – home to deep-rooted tensions.

On October 22, when Rama’s British counterpart Keir Starmer hosted him and the five other Western Balkans leaders, the premier of the United Kingdom called the region “Europe’s crucible – the place where the security of our continent is put to the test”.

The six nations are at varying levels of negotiations with the EU regarding accession, attempting to reform sectors from their judiciaries to social welfare departments in order to join the bloc.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently praised the progress made by Montenegro and Albania.

In Tirana on October 25, in a news conference alongside Rama, she said Albania is on “the right track towards the European Union”, adding, “there has been a stunning and outstanding record speed acceleration since 2022”.

Rama agreed, telling Al Jazeera that the EU’s sense of openness in welcoming the Balkan nations has improved since the Ukraine war began.

Here are the key events from day 1,349 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Tuesday, November 4:

Fighting

• Russia said on Monday that its troops had advanced in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, an important transport and logistics hub that they have been trying to capture for more than a year, but Ukraine said its forces were holding on.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters that Pokrovsk remained under severe pressure, though Russian troops had made no gains in the past day.
• He also said that Russia was massing troops by the nearby town of Dobropillia, where Kyiv’s forces advanced earlier this year in a successful counteroffensive. He described the situation in Dobropillia as complicated.
• Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps said that Ukrainian forces had thwarted a Russian attempt to cut off a supply route to Pokrovsk from Rodynske, to the north.
• Elsewhere, Russia said its troops had also attacked Ukrainian forces near another eastern city, Kupiansk, and dislodged them from four fortified positions in the industrial zone on the left bank of the Oskol River. Zelenskyy said that up to 60 Russian soldiers remained in Kupiansk, and that Ukrainian forces were trying to clear them.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence said its forces had carried out heavy overnight strikes on a Ukrainian military airfield, a military equipment repair base and military-industrial facilities, as well as gas infrastructure facilities that supported them.
• Ukraine’s military said it hit an oil refinery in Russia’s Saratov region, adding that a successful strike and resulting fire had been recorded on one of the refining facilities.
• Ukraine also said that it had hit Russian military logistical facilities in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Luhansk.

Weapons

• Zelenskyy announced that Kyiv will set up offices for arms exports and joint weapons production in Berlin and Copenhagen this year.

• Zelenskyy added that Ukraine plans to launch mass production of its domestically produced missiles – the Flamingo and Ruta – by the end of this year.
• He also said that a Ukrainian delegation would visit Washington, DC, next week for further talks on a US-Ukraine drone deal, which Kyiv hopes will bolster ties with the administration of US President Donald Trump.

Politics and diplomacy

• The European Commission (EC) said in a draft text that Ukraine is showing “remarkable commitment” to joining the European Union, but must reverse recent negative trends in the fight against corruption and accelerate rule of law reforms, according to the Reuters news agency.
• The agency reported that the EC also said that Kyiv needed to make more progress on judicial independence, fighting organised crime and respecting civil society.
• Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin departed for a two-day visit to China, which the Kremlin said is significant and includes planned talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Economy

• Zelenskyy said Ukraine still needs to raise $750m to secure gas imports for the upcoming winter. The government wants to increase natural gas imports by about 30 percent after Russia sharply intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector in recent weeks, focusing on gas facilities.

Here are the key events from day 1,348 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Monday, November 3, 2025:

Fighting

• Russia fired a wave of drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight on Sunday, killing at least 15 people, including two children, the Kyiv Independent reported.
• The attacks cut electricity to nearly 60,000 residents in the southern front-line region of Zaporizhia, Ukrainian authorities said.
• Ukrainian forces launched a drone attack on one of Russia’s main Black Sea oil ports, Tuapse, causing a fire and damaging at least two foreign vessels there, according to local officials.
• The overnight attack on Sunday forced the temporary closure of dozens of Russian airports, chiefly in the country’s south and west, for safety reasons, Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsiya said on Telegram.

Weapons

• United States President Donald Trump said that he is not considering a deal that would allow Ukraine to obtain the long-range Tomahawk missiles for use against Russia.

Sanctions

• Turkiye’s largest oil refineries are buying more non-Russian oil in response to the latest Western sanctions on Russia, two people with direct knowledge of the matter and several industry sources told the Reuters news agency. Turkiye is a major buyer of Russian crude, along with China and India.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the continuing deadly Russian attacks on his country proved that Moscow was aiming to “inflict harm” on civilians, and announced that Kyiv had beefed up its air defences in response.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “painstaking work” on the details of a possible agreement is needed to resolve the war in Ukraine, and not a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The United States and China have declared a truce in the trade war launched by US President Donald Trump in April, argues Evan Medeiros, former US National Security Council director for China.

Medeiros tells host Steve Clemons that the deal reached between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump resolves the urgent trade issues between the two sides – tariff rates, soya beans and rare earth minerals – but China “remains committed to ensuring that Russia doesn’t lose” in Ukraine.

The US has more than 200,000 soldiers surrounding China, Medeiros adds, but Washington knows that “nobody wants to choose between the US and China.”

The battle over Ukraine’s Pokrovsk rages as both Russia and Ukraine continue to hit each other’s energy infrastructure.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, November 2, 2025:

Fighting

• At least four civilians have been killed and 51 injured across Ukraine by Russian attacks, according to local officials.
• A strike blamed on Russia hit a shop in the Samariivskyi district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, killing two and injuring multiple people, regional military chief Vladyslav Haivanenko said.
• The Ukrainian military has said Russian forces launched four missiles and dropped 139 guided bombs over the past day, as well as thousands of shells and drones.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defences intercepted 164 Ukrainian drones, including 39 over the Black Sea and 26 over Crimea, overnight.
• Fighting continues to intensify near the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, with the Russian army saying its forces destroyed Ukrainian military formations near the railway station.
• Oleksandr Syrskii, Ukraine’s top military commander, said Ukrainian troops were facing a “multi-thousand enemy” force in Pokrovsk, but rejected Russian claims that they were surrounded or blocked.
• Ukraine confirmed that its special forces had been deployed to protect key supply lines in Pokrovsk, while Russia claimed Ukrainian troops were surrendering and some of the special forces were killed while landing in a helicopter.
• Ukraine’s military intelligence announced a strike on the Koltsevoy fuel pipeline near Moscow, claiming all three lines were destroyed.
• A drone attack by Ukraine reportedly hit an oil terminal pier and a tanker in Tuapse town, located on the northeast shore of the Black Sea, setting fire to port infrastructure.

Politics

• Ukraine condemned Russia’s attacks on key energy infrastructure. Its Foreign Ministry accused Moscow of carrying out strikes on a power substation feeding nuclear power plants in “nuclear terrorism”.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that its inspectors visited a substation critical to nuclear safety and security in Ukraine, and reported damage “as a result of recent military activities”.
• In a statement on Friday, G7 energy ministers condemned Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, saying they are affecting civilians.
• Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed on Friday that his foreign intelligence service has identified 339 Ukrainian children who have been allegedly abducted by Russia.

Regional security

• Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told the Reuters news agency he is confident that the country’s governing coalition can agree on a new model of military service for implementation next year as planned.
• An unidentified drone was spotted over the Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium on Saturday, the second such sighting over the previous 24 hours.

Ukrainian army chief says effort continues ‘to destroy and dislodge’ Russian forces from strategic Donetsk region city.

Ukraine has deployed special forces to the embattled eastern city of Pokrovsk, the country’s top military commander said, as Kyiv seeks to maintain control of the area amid an intense Russian offensive.

Russia has been trying to capture Pokrovsk, dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk”, since mid-2024 in its campaign to control the entirety of the eastern Donetsk region.

“We are holding Pokrovsk,” Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskii said on Facebook on Saturday. “A comprehensive operation to destroy and dislodge enemy forces from Pokrovsk is ongoing.”

Home to more than 60,000 people before the Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022, Pokrovsk lies on a major supply route for the Ukrainian army.

Taking control of the city would be the most important Russian territorial gain inside Ukraine since Moscow took over Avdiivka in early 2024 after one of the bloodiest battles of the conflict.

Russia and Ukraine have presented conflicting accounts of what has been happening in Pokrovsk in recent days.

The Russian Ministry of Defence on Saturday claimed its forces had defeated the team of Ukrainian special forces that were sent to the city. It later posted videos showing two men it said were Ukrainians who had surrendered.

The footage shows the men, one dressed in fatigues and the other in a dark green jacket, sitting against a peeling wall in a dark room, as they speak of fierce fighting and encirclement by Russian forces.

The video’s authenticity could not be independently verified, and there was no immediate public comment from Kyiv on the Russian ministry’s claims.

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed last week that his forces had encircled the city’s Ukrainian defenders.

But Syrskii, the Ukrainian army chief, said on Saturday that while the situation in Pokrovsk remains “hardest” for Ukrainian forces, there is no encirclement or blockade as Russia has claimed.

“The main burden lies on the shoulders of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, particularly UAV operators and assault units,” Syrskii said.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged on Friday that some Russian units had infiltrated Pokrovsk, but he insisted that Kyiv is weeding them out.

Russian officials say control of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka to its northeast would allow Moscow to drive north towards the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in Donetsk – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

British blogger Kieren Adam Owen, better known as JimmyTheGiant, has become a passionate defender of Ukraine since marrying Vlada after meeting her on a holiday in Thailand

“The first thing you notice about Ukraine is how spotless the toilets are.”

British blogger Kieren Adam Owen, better known as JimmyTheGiant, was taken aback by the sparkling state of the bathrooms in Lviv when he visited the Ukrainian city for the first time after meeting his now-wife, Vlada, whom he had fallen head over heels for during a holiday in Thailand.

But it’s not just the immaculate nature of the WCs that caught Keiren’s eye. He is now a great enthusiast for the food, the coffee, the community life in the countryside and much else in Ukraine.

He is not the only one to have fallen for a nation that has been devastated by the war, or who is willing to go to great lengths to get there. According to data compiled by the State Border Service of Ukraine and VisitKyiv.com for the first half of 2025, foreigners crossed the Ukrainian border 1,194,983 times – 6,000 more than in the same period last year. That is, of course, a much smaller number than before the war and the coronavirus pandemic. In 2019, 13.4million tourists visited Ukraine.

All those who do go are risking their lives to varying degrees. As of 30 September 2025, 14,383 civilians had been killed in the war, according to the OHCHR. The UK Foreign Office states bluntly that it “advises against all travel to parts of Ukraine.”

Kieren is clearly aware of these dangers and not immune to fear. When in the country, whenever the air raid sirens begin to ring out, he immediately rushes down to the shelter: unlike some war-weary Ukrainians. “I can imagine that when you live there, you don’t always want to go to a shelter — probably because it’s a headache, and you know that the actual attacks that hit are fewer than the ones you hear the sirens for. But when you’re traveling, you can kind of do it, so I always just go to the shelter whenever,” he told the Mirror.

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While most today are travelling for work or family events, some head to the war-torn country simply to explore. Others are on pilgrimage to Uman – an annual trip when thousands of Hasidim visit the tomb of Rabbi Nachman, founder of Bratslav Hasidism. Humanitarian trips are common, with large numbers travelling to participate in dozens of reconstruction projects crucial for a country that has been battered by missiles and drone strikes since February 2022.

Surprisingly, it is not in the cities that Keiren has felt most scared. Rather, it is in the rural areas without bomb shelters where he’s most feared for his life. There, he has watched rockets falling right above his head, with nowhere to hide except the house he was living in. “You feel more vulnerable there — there’s only ‘God’s protection’,” he said.

Kieren was once best known for his analytical takes on economics and politics, before he began producing documentary reports from Ukraine. The change in direction came after he married Vlada.

Now he spends a significant portion of his time promoting the lesser-known aspects of one of Europe’s poorest countries.

In a 52-minute YouTube video titled ‘How Ukraine changed my life‘, which he published earlier this year, the Milton Keynes lad explained how the country stole his heart.

“Your image of Ukraine is of this very brutalist, post-Soviet, kind of depressing, poor place, and Lviv just shattered this mental image. You’re walking on these cobbled streets, and you see all these beautiful, stunning, classical buildings. Everyone around you is cooler than you, dressed cooler than you, they’re just stylish, chill bras. Every single restaurant or cafe is on the level of the coolest of cool places in London, even better in some cases. The coffee… I literally became a coffee snob because of that trip.”

Keiren’s adulation for Ukraine stretches to the rural areas, where his in-laws live. There, wages are much lower than in Lviv and the capital Kyiv, yet access to great stretches of arable countryside abounds. Many work the land alongside their day jobs, building up larders with conserves and wines, as small-holding, subsistence farmers.

“I would argue in some regards, they live a much more fulfilling life than many poor people in the UK,” Kieren says in his video, noting the level of community cohesion, access to nature and fresh food many rural Ukrainians enjoy.

Kieren makes clear that he “isn’t saying that their lives are heaven” or that serious poverty, access issues for disabled people, and low life expectancy aren’t serious issues in the country.

Kieren has never been close to the front line, where the level of danger is much higher. Despite the risks he runs by being in Ukraine, he is keen to keep returning to a country he has fallen in love with.

“This is how high-quality everything is. I miss how everywhere you go, everything just feels perfect. That’s super nice. And the vibe. It’s just nice to be in Ukraine — the trees, the streets of Kyiv, the people who, despite the war, remain friendly and create an incredible atmosphere,” he continued.

For many Brits who find a second home abroad, the financial clout of the pound is a significant benefit. As he earns money in Britain, Kieren can afford more than he would back in the UK.

“When you come here, you feel like a millionaire,” he joked. “So you can have a really enjoyable week, constantly visiting various establishments.”

Kieren’s top recommendation is the restaurant 100 rokiv tomu vpered (100 Years Ahead), run by renowned Ukrainian chef Yevgen Klopotenko, who serves up traditional dishes, such as borscht, and the less typical fried bees. Another favourite place is Musafir, a Crimean Tatar restaurant known for its fried, doughy chibereks.

When not indulging in the local fare, Keiren enjoys spending time on Reitarska Street, an artistic hub in Kyiv, and Andriivskyi Uzviz. Kieren also recommends visiting the Golden Gate in the city center, a historic structure that was once the entrance to Kyiv, as well as having a picnic in one of Kyiv’s parks, such as Taras Shevchenko Park.

The top 10 countries by number of entries into Ukraine in the first half of 2025

1. Moldova — 509,219
2. Romania — 197,012
3. Poland — 116,589
4. Hungary — 60,400
5. Slovakia — 35,279
6. Israel — 26,869
7. Germany — 23,687
8. Turkey — 22,858
9. United States — 22,840
10. United Kingdom — 17,210

Here are the key events from day 1,346 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, November 1, 2025:

Fighting

• Russian forces killed eight people and injured 18 others in Ukraine’s Donetsk region in the past day, the Head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, Vadym Filashkin, reported on Facebook on Friday.
• Five people were killed, and three others injured, when two different cars hit explosive devices in a forest area of Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region on Friday, local police said, adding that they are “investigating the circumstances” of the “two car bombings in the border zone”.
• Russian forces launched 673 attacks on 19 settlements in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region in a day, killing at least three people and injuring 29, governor Ivan Fedorov wrote in a post on Telegram.
• A 56-year-old woman was killed, and four other people were wounded, in Russian shelling of the Dnipro district of Ukraine’s Kherson region, the Kherson Regional Military Administration wrote in a post on Telegram on Friday.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters that 170,000 Russian troops are deployed near the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk but that the city is not encircled, according to Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform.
• Russian forces seized the Ukrainian village of Novooleksandrivka, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed, according to Russia’s TASS news agency. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the claim.
• Ukrainian shelling left more than 2,000 households without electricity in the town of Kamianka-Dniprovska in Russian-occupied Zaporizhia, TASS reported, citing local officials.
• Ukraine’s navy said on Friday it struck a Russian thermal power plant in the Oryol region and an electric substation in Novobryansk with Neptune cruise missiles.

• Ukrainian forces have hit 160 Russian oil and energy facilities so far this year, the head of the SBU security service, Vasyl Maliuk, told reporters on Friday.

Politics and diplomacy

• Moldova’s parliament chose Alexandru Munteanu as its new prime minister, in support of the country’s efforts to join the European Union and move further away from Russia.

Sanctions

• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday he hopes to convince United States President Donald Trump that Hungary should be exempted from US sanctions on Russian oil because of its high dependence on pipeline networks for its energy supplies. Orban also noted that Germany had sought an exemption for one of its refineries.
• The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday it had banned entrance to Russia for more European Union officials in response to new European sanctions against Russia, without providing a list of banned individuals.
• The European Commission said on Friday that export bans on Ukrainian foods imposed by three EU members – Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – were not justified now that an updated EU-Ukraine free trade agreement has entered force.

Regional security

Weapons

• The Pentagon has told the White House that providing Tomahawk weapons to Ukraine would not negatively impact US stockpiles, CNN reported, citing three unnamed US and European officials.

Russia has used its ground-launched 9M729 cruise missile to strike targets in Ukraine multiple times in recent months. This is the conclusion of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, and it also tallies with reports from independent analysts who have been tracking the use of the missile, the original deployment of which led to the United States walking away from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, or INF, Treaty in 2019.

“Russia’s use of the INF-banned 9M729 against Ukraine in the past months demonstrates Putin’s disrespect to the United States and President Trump’s diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Sybiha said.

Sybiha’s comments provide the first confirmation that Russia has used the 9M729 missile — known to NATO as the SSC-8 Screwdriver — in combat.

Another, unnamed Ukrainian senior official told Reuters that Russia had fired the 9M729 against targets in Ukraine 23 times since August 21 of this year. The same source said that the missile had been launched on two other occasions since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022; it is not immediately clear if these were also combat launches, but a combat evaluation is a strong possibility.

Notably, the Kremlin had, on August 4, said it would no longer limit where it deploys nuclear-capable missiles with ranges in excess of the former INF Treaty. That would suggest something of a change in policy, publicly at least, prior to the more regular combat employment of the 9M729.

According to Reuters, quoting another unnamed military source, one of the 9M729 missiles fired by Russia, on October 5 of this year, flew over 1,200 kilometers (746 miles) before hitting a target in Ukraine.

The range is significant, since it was this factor that the United States argued put the 9M729 in breach of the INF Treaty, which put a limit of 500 kilometers (310 miles) on ground-launched missiles, nuclear or conventional.

If the military source’s information is accurate, then it would confirm that, as expected, the 9M729 is able to fly far beyond the now-defunct INF Treaty limits.

As to the veracity of the Ukrainian comments on the use of the 9M729, Douglas Barrie, Senior Fellow for Military Aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), told TWZ that he considered them to be plausible.

“If you think what the Russians have been doing elsewhere in terms of their weapons, the things that they have had in the locker and wanted to test, then you can see why they would want to use it,” Barrie said.

For its part, Russia has always denied that the 9M729 violated the now-defunct nuclear arms control treaty. At the same time, it accused the United States of violating the same treaty through the construction of Aegis Ashore missile defense sites in Europe, which it argues can be used to fire the BGM-109 Tomahawk land attack cruise missile, something that U.S. officials deny.

According to the Missile Threat website produced at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the 9M729 can actually hit targets as far away as 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles). Meanwhile, Douglas Barrie at the IISS says that he assesses the missile to have a likely range at least in excess of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles).

There is some evidence that backs up the claims of the 9M729’s use in Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials provided Reuters with images of debris after a Russian attack on the Ukrainian village of Lapaiivka on October 5, which purportedly involved the 9M729. This struck a residential building, killing four people, at a distance of over 600 kilometers (373 miles) from the Russian border.

Reportedly, these images include two missile fragments that were marked 9M729.

These images were reviewed by Jeffrey Lewis, Distinguished Scholar of Global Security at Middlebury College, who agreed that they were consistent with the 9M729’s expected appearance. In particular, the missile body and engine, as well as the distinct markings, pointed to the 9M729, according to Lewis’s analysis.

The Kremlin has not commented on the alleged use of the 9M729.

Russia only publicly acknowledged the existence of the 9M729 in November 2018, though it reportedly entered development sometime in the mid-2000s.

In 2019, Russia publicly displayed the launch canisters for the 9M729 and its associated transporter erector launcher, or TEL, and offered some details about the complete system.

At that time, Russia said that the 9M729 featured an improved guidance system and a larger warhead compared to the older 9M728, known to NATO as the SSC-7 Southpaw, another weapon understood to have been used by Russia against Ukraine. Russia argued that the 9M729 was longer, heavier, and actually had less range than its predecessor. The new TEL can also carry four missiles, while the older vehicle associated with the 9M728/SSC-7 could only fire two before needing to reload.

Russia has said that the 9M729 has a range of just less than 300 miles, which would be clearly contradicted by the latest information from Ukraine, provided it is accurate.

The more regular employment of the 9M729 would provide Russia with another cruise missile option for striking Ukraine. Up until now, it has primarily relied on the air-launched Kh-101 cruise missile, as well as the Kalibr, which can be launched from surface combatants and submarines. All of these weapons, 9M728 and 9M729 included, are subsonic.

However, compared to other land-based options, the 9M729 offers Russia the advantage that it can be launched from locations deeper inside Russia. It is also mobile, meaning that it is relatively easy to relocate and to conceal, so it can be fired from different locations and axes, making it harder for already hard-pressed Ukrainian air defenses to deal with.

There are several other reasons why Russia might now be using the 9M729.

It could be that numbers of the Kh-101 and Kalibr are running low, with Russia’s military-industrial complex, hampered by Western sanctions, which especially affect high-technology components of the kind that precision-guided weapons rely on, unable to backfill the arsenal sufficiently. Existing 9M729 rounds would provide another option to boost stocks of standoff weapons.

Secondly, there is the issue of signaling to Ukraine’s allies in the West.

The reported use of the 9M729 comes as Kyiv pushes for the United States to supply it with Tomahawk cruise missiles. Like the 9M729, these would be ground-launched weapons and would be able to strike targets deep inside Russia with a very high degree of precision. Unlike the 9M729, the Tomahawk was not outlawed under the INF Treaty, since, at that time, it was only sea-launched.

As far as Kyiv is concerned, having access to weapons like the Tomahawk would put additional pressure on Moscow to end its war in Ukraine.

Russian officials, including Putin, have warned that supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks would be a dangerous escalation.

Russian employment of the 9M729 also serves as a message to NATO nations in Europe, most of which fall well within its assumed range.

In that sense, employing the 9M729 also serves to send a clear message to the West that Russia won’t bow to pressure, especially over the conflict in Ukraine. Other examples include recent tests of high-profile nuclear-capable weapons like the Poseidon nuclear-powered, nuclear-tipped, ultra-long-endurance torpedo, which you can read about here, and the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile, discussed here.

Another new weapon, the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile, has also been used against Ukraine by Russia. Today, Ukraine claimed that its security service and military intelligence destroyed one of these missile systems during a covert operation at the Kapustin Yar testing range, in the Astrakhan region of southern Russia.

In the United States, meanwhile, President Donald Trump issued a statement this week saying he “instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.” The reason, Trump explained, was because of “other countries [sic] testing programs.”

The exact meaning of this statement remains unclear, but the possible implications are something we have discussed in detail.

At this point, we still don’t know with certainty that Russia is now using the 9M729 cruise missile against Ukrainian targets. However, considering its employment of other long-range weapons in the conflict, and the Kremlin’s ongoing efforts to send threatening signals toward Europe as Washington seeks a peace settlement, it certainly seems to fit that pattern.

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As Brussels pushes ahead with a new wave of enlargement, the numbers behind Europe’s trade with its candidate countries reveal a story of dependence, asymmetry, but also a large, untapped potential.

The official EU candidates are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine. Kosovo is treated as a potential candidate.

Together, they cover a diverse sweep of geography from long Adriatic coastlines to lush forests and some of Europe’s most productive farmland — also including some of Europe’s youngest populations.

But while trade flows between the bloc and future members are booming, the relationship remains unequal, with more EU-produced goods finding a market than those stemming from potential member states.

A relationship measured in billions

According to the European Commission’s 2025 Western Balkans trade factsheet, total trade in goods between the EU and the six Western Balkan partners reached €83.6 billion in 2024, up 28.6% since 2021.

Exports from the EU to the region stood at €49.06bn, while imports from the Western Balkans came to €34.52bn, leaving Brussels with a €14.54bn trade surplus.

The EU’s dominance as a market is overwhelming. It accounts for around 62% of all Western Balkan trade, whereas the region represents barely 1.7% of the EU’s external trade.

For Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Albania, between two-thirds and three-quarters of all exports go to EU countries.

“All (candidate) countries, with the curious exception of North Macedonia, have persistent trade deficits with the EU, meaning they import more from the EU than they export there,” explained Branimir Jovanović, an expert with The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW).

“These are economies with small productive sectors. They do not produce enough of what they need, so they have to import, and they also do not produce enough to export,” Jovanović continued.

Over the past decade, North Macedonia has become a production base for components that go straight into EU industry that qualify for preferential access to the EU market under the Stabilisation and Association framework (SAA).

The result is that North Macedonia can sell a relatively high share of what it makes directly into the EU without being blocked by technical standards.

This is very different from, say, Albania, which leans more on raw materials and low-value textiles, or Montenegro, which is tourism-heavy and import-dependent in goods.

It is also different from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, which still import a lot of higher-value machinery from the EU and then export a more mixed, lower-value basket back.

Ukraine and Moldova import high-value EU machinery, vehicles and industrial equipment, while exporting mainly lower-margin goods. In essence, they supply raw materials and basic products, and the EU supplies the technology to produce them.

Barriers to trade

The Western Balkans trade with the EU under SAAs, which gradually remove tariffs and align national laws with EU rules as part of the formal accession process. By contrast, Ukraine and Moldova operate under Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTAs), broader deals that open large parts of the EU single market in exchange for adopting much of the EU’s regulatory framework.

In essence, SAAs are a pathway to membership, while DCFTAs offer deep EU market integration without full membership. This distinction has, however, become blurred — with Brussels indicating that it believes in full membership for Ukraine and Moldova after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“Countries exporting to the EU face many barriers aside from tariffs. Economists call these technical barriers to trade, such as phytosanitary standards,” Jovanović explained.

So even if they produce something that there is a demand for in the EU, it never reaches those markets because these companies might not have the necessary certificates.

“So, although unemployment has decreased, there is no real progress in development. There is also a real risk of a middle-income trap, in the sense that these economies remain assembly-line economies, with low wages and limited technological development and innovation.”

The same debate now extends to Ukraine, which formally opened EU accession talks in 2024. Despite the war, trade between the EU and Ukraine has surged. Eurostat data shows the bloc exported €42.8bn worth of goods to Ukraine in 2024 and imported €24.5bn, yielding a €18.3bn surplus for the EU.

The composition of that trade has shifted dramatically since the Russian invasion. Agricultural commodities still dominate Ukrainian exports such but the EU has become its conduit for reconstruction materials and machinery.

Neighbouring Moldova, another candidate country since 2023, shows similar patterns. The EU is Moldova’s biggest trading partner, accounting for 54% of its total trade in goods in 2024. Some 65.6% of Moldovan exports head to the EU.

Trade turnover reached about €7.5bn last year, with EU exports to Moldova amounting to €5.1bn and imports to €2.4bn.

EU standards, a distant dream?

The Western Balkans have made solid progress since the early 2000s, but full convergence with the European Union remains a distant goal, warned the OECD’s Economic Convergence Scoreboard for 2025.

The six economies have more than doubled their output in two decades — yet the region still only reaches about 40% of the EU average. At current growth rates, full convergence won’t arrive until 2074.

The region’s output per person (in purchasing-power parity terms) has more than doubled in 20 years, showing real improvement in productivity, investment, and living standards.

That means the Western Balkans are closing the gap, but painfully slowly, and the strong growth rates are offset by the much higher productivity and capital stock inside the EU.

Growth, on its own, is not enough for convergence. The Western Balkans need qualitatively different growth which is driven by innovation, skills, and higher-value industries.

Infrastructure and productivity are the region’s weakest links.

According to the OECD report: “The insufficient quality and coverage of core public transport infrastructure can be a significant obstacle to higher economic growth…as inadequate transport networks can severely constrain the connectivity of producers and consumers to global and regional markets.”

With regard to Ukraine, its economy has adapted after a historic shock, but the damage is staggering. Much of the population has been displaced and large swathes of infrastructure have been destroyed.

Output fell –28.8% in 2022 and rebounded +5.5% in 2023. Public finances are being stretched to the limit by defence needs, hindering convergence with EU member states.

Foreign investment: Friend or foe?

Foreign direct investment (FDI) brings factories and jobs to candidate countries, as well as building stronger links with existing EU member states. Even so, Jovanović argued that this has not led to “structural transformation” in the candidate nations.

The pattern is visible, for example, in Serbia — where car plants are boosting employment but the country is still importing high-tech machinery.

When FDI concentrates in lower-value stages of production and local supplier bases remain thin, wage gains are limited and more value is captured abroad.

“There is a duality in how FDI is perceived: politicians still see it as the key — sometimes even the only way — to develop the economy, while people are increasingly seeing it as a vicious circle,” said Jovanović.

“Hence, a change in the economic model is long overdue — with a more selective approach towards FDI, focusing on high-quality and high-tech investment and a greater focus on domestic companies through industrial and innovation policies,” Jovanović added.

The argument is clear: while FDI raises employment and links these economies to EU markets, it becomes transformative only when it upgrades the local production base.

Otherwise, candidate countries risk remaining an assembly platform rather than a full partner in Europe’s value chains.

A test of Europe’s promise

In the end, the numbers tell both a success story and a warning. They show integration without transformation: Exports are up, factories are open, but productivity and infrastructure still lag.

The next phase will need to hinge on quality, not just quantity, say experts. This means selective FDI that upgrades supply chains, targeted single-market access tied to reforms, and faster investment in skills, energy, and transport.

If Brussels and the candidates can shift from assembly to innovation, the gap can narrow within a generation. If not, the candidate countries risk remaining a dependable workshop rather than a prosperous partner.